Every Saturday and Sunday, Vanessa Zhâ and Marion Sauveur make us discover some nuggets of French heritage.
Today, head for the Vosges department along the Blue Way to discover the Royal Manufacture.
Then, a gourmet stop to taste a real rum baba.
We go through the Vosges by taking the Blue Way, one of the very last bicycle routes that connects Luxembourg to Lyon.
The particularity of this bike-route is that it runs along the water: the Moselle, the Canal des Vosges and then the Saône.
We are going to stop on the Canal des Vosges, south of Epinal in a historic place, a destination in its own right: The Royal Manufactory of Bains-les-Bains, It is one of the most beautiful industrial sites of the 18th century. century, in the Vosges and still in a state of conservation.
It was a royal tinsmith and it is an essential stopover for cyclists and hikers since the factory runs along the Blue Way for nearly 3 kilometers.
What does this Royal Manufacture look like?
I will let Martine Cornevaux, the site manager, set the scene for you: "It is an industrial village completely in a state of conservation. There is the castle, the chapel, the workers' houses, the mansions, the grand park. There are animals that live in the parks, like deer. There are also stables, large premises. There is still the machine room so you can see all the industry of the time (1733) and a magnificent chapel consecrated by the bishop of Toul in 1735. In all, 15,000 m² of buildings on 20 hectares. "
It is gigantic. I understand better why you said that it was a destination in itself like the Saline d'Arc et Senans.
Exactly, and which is not very far elsewhere. You should know that there are very few industrial sites. There it dates from the 18th century but in a classic, square and discreet style. There is nothing ostentatious. La Saline is in the shape of a solar arc, but what is extraordinary is that it has always been standing since 1733! As they were industrial sites, they needed water, they were always installed along the rivers and woods, which makes it also a beautiful natural setting.
We can stay there and sleep in addition.
Everything is planned, especially for your bikes.
"We have a house called the bicycle house. We are the first site in the Vosges to label a bicycle because we are at the edge of the cycle path. All the equipment in case people die is provided by the department. The site is owned and managed by a motorcycle champion for whom repairing a bicycle is a joke ", explains Martine Cornevaux.
She is very proud of her cycling label, and she is right, cyclists have always been the first visitors, given the location and the setting, it's a godsend.
Many elsewhere come from Holland, Germany, and Luxembourg.
And it's even easier with this new Blue Lane.
And then if we go up this Blue Way we go through Epinal, and then continuing we arrive in Nancy.
Marion Sauveur which Nancy specialty did you choose?
The rum baba this golden, very soft cake soaked in syrup flavored with rum and covered with whipped cream.
A delicacy that we owe to the King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine Stanislas Leczynski We go back to the 18th century.
He was fond of a Polish brioche: the babka.
He had it prepared at the Château de Lunéville.
Babka has a very soft dough, a bit like Italian panettone or Alsatian kouglof.
At the end of his life, it is said that he no longer had a tooth and therefore poured his favorite glass of wine - a sweet Hungarian wine: Tokaj - over his portion of brioche to make it softer.
This is how the baba was born.
I met Yvain Rollot, the chef of the Table du Bon Roi Stanislas in Nancy. A history enthusiast who offers Lorraine recipes from the time of Stanislas on the plate, brought up to date. Among its specialties the baba, but the original ... it has nothing to do with the baba that we know.
"We are on a leavened dough so the yeast or a leaven, with a flour white enough type 45 to have a fairly fine brioche, a lot of eggs. We have more egg than in a classic French brioche and therefore a dough that is quite flexible.And then we add raisins and possibly almonds something like that point of candied fruits: candied lemons candied cedrats and it was also traditionally flavored and colored with saffron since saffron brings flavor and brings a beautiful yellow color of egg to the dough, ”he explains.
Candied fruits, dried fruits, saffron. It has nothing to do with the baba we know.
The whipped cream or the pastry cream were surely added naturally: with the service à la française, it was not uncommon to have a dozen dishes on the table at the beginning of the 19th century.
And it took a century for the pastry chefs to adapt the recipe and sell them in their shop with a syrup flavored with rum much cheaper than Tokaj.
How do you make a rum baba today?
We make a paste of savarin.
The baker's yeast is activated with water and flour.
Mix with the eggs, sugar and salt.
When the dough is homogeneous, we integrate the melted butter.
The dough is ready, we cover it with a cloth and we let it push gently for about 30 minutes.
Half fill the molds, before putting the tea towel back on the molds.
Do not bake until the dough has filled ¾ of the mold.
Bake in a hot oven (180 degrees) for 25 minutes.
A little tip: unmold them, before putting them back in the oven for 5 minutes so that they finish browning.
During cooking, the syrup is made: the water is heated with sugar, with split and scraped vanilla pods.
When the sugar is melted, stop cooking, add rum and let infuse.
Soak the babas in the still lukewarm syrup: 5 minutes on one side, 5 minutes on the other.
They must be well soaked ...
They are served covered with whipped cream.
Baba is better fresh, but I have a tip if you want some to eat whenever you want: make jars of rum babas.
Make mini babas (with small savarin molds or in the shape of a cork).
Once cooled, put them in sterilized jars, up to half of them.
Pour the hot syrup over the very cold babas. Fill the jar aux well.
Close the jar and turn over.
Leave to rest for at least 3 or 4 days so that the babas are well soaked.
If we don't want to have rum baba but taste it?
For the original, only one address: the Table du Bon Roi Stanislas in Nancy. They usually serve the Tokaj wine-soaked baba with saffron ice cream, but at the moment to go they offer a saffron whipped cream. Take-out is by reservation on weekends. And an address, this time for the baba we know: the Gwizdak house. A bakery where you will find rum baba but also soaked in mirabelle plums. And yes, we are in Lorraine!